False Peak

[SpidarX]

How can you tell if your battery charger is false peaking? Also, if your charger does false peak, are you supposed to just put the battery back on charge and wait for it to peak again?

[Duster_360]

If you're staring with a discharged batt, if the batt is not getting warm and its only charging a few minutes before shutting down, charger is likely false peaking. When I had this prob, I would just put the batt back on. May take more than one time re-trying.

Higher priced chargers let you set a time period where the charger will ignore a peak and just charge. False peaks are usually early on and that delay option will get you past most false peaking problems.

[venom2034]

ohh which explains why sometimes my hobbico accu cycle elite sometimes says "battery past time limit" and id be so confused. now i understand why i must set it up every time. any one now how to save the settings?

[guver]

The elite has 10 memory locations that can be programmed, it's in the manual. It also has a 999 minute time out or is figured out by the program using the capacity and rate. If I remember correctly the book says to push enter to save memory.

[highroller]

Besides using the lockout feature which helps some other things can help as well. Try using a lower load of say 1-2 amps like a single bulb, discharge resistor (Trinity makes one with a Tamiya connector or get one from Radio Shack 1ohm 10 watt) for stick pack or inline. Just solder a connector to each end and attack to battery pack. When resistor is cool to the touch voltage is low enough - use something else like a string of lightbulbs to discharge pack voltage higher than 5.40 volts for 6cell or 3.40 volt for 4cell packs. By not deep cycling -taking cells to a lower voltage range, cells tend to discharge to different levels in use. Over time this imbalance can cause false peaking to occur more often. Even with the lockout function if the imbalance in voltage is too high it can still cause false peaks.
It may seem like a lot of unnecessay work but not only will it almost eliminate the false peaking but battery will charge better, run longer and have a little more consistant use even in bashing use.

[JoeMAXX]

I avoid most false peaks by discharging my battery packs before recharging them if you do not drain them before a recharge they hold memory from the last usage and not perform as well.

I have an ICE charger that would not perform a decent charge if I just threw the battery pack on the charger before I did a charge. False Peak or just picking up. Hmmm I wonder.

For most battery packs after sitting for a few days or weeks it is better to drain them down then let them sit for 15 to 20 minutes before you recharge the cells in my experience. I get a full charge of the cells this way and with the ICE charger I can see how much charge is going back into the Cells.